Adam Tendler's Blog, page 22

june 25, 1:00am | 3m | bars

my computer has a battery life of 10 minutes. pride weekend feels like a kind of holiday. i celebrated today by wearing a tank top and sunglasses. and getting a haircut. the barber caught me cracking my knuckles and said, “you know, you’re going to get old and your fingers won’t work anymore.” we also went to the museum of natural history. but the celebration lights the rest of the city up in rainbows. i saw an image of a construction worker painting a crosswalk in rainbow colors. i remembered tonight, going out. how i used to. kind of a lot. the smell of a bar—the cheap vodka, mints, secondhand smoke and dried cranberry juice. limes. that smell. i remember it vividly. i don’t not go out now, but i used to more. okay, honestly so i remembered this time when i puked in a cab. winter time, and this person i had recently started dating, and who drank a lot himself, had me drinking shot after shot of Patrón tequila. in the cab from the east village to west, i bobbed in the backseat until it came bubbling out. i don’t totally remember how the situation ended. unhappily, for the cab driver, i imagine. actually, i think i had almost left, in my humiliation, without paying. but that memory has nothing to do with pride. still undetermined if we’ll go to the parade tomorrow. tonight, practiced and dared to check at least a couple metronome markings. lately, practicing doesn’t make me feel better, but rather quite worse. but then, i keep fostering the faith that it will indeed all come together. i have this fantasy that the engineers in london will hear me and say, ‘no way.’ or that i’ll simply crumble under the pressure. a husband of a friend once told me never to voice my insecurities. “now they’re out there,” he said. but not ‘out there’ in a positive way, but rather, out there and gaining strength in reality, i suppose, as opposed to remaining inside, and thus a fantasy. not real. anyway, i don’t know if i buy it. said goodbye to the dancers today. while i frowned and congratulated and thanked, they seemed, as they had most of the run, pretty indifferent to me. even in goodbye. but to a gentleman who opened the backstage door for me over the course of these two weeks, named brandon, i said “i’ll miss you.” and he said, “i’ll miss you too.” 

june 24, 1:20am | 7m | droop

dinner tonight was a cheeseburger with bacon and american cheese. could have had a salad. or a hot dog. the gaspacho never came. “you don’t like receiving applause,” said my friend who attended tonight’s show. “You should enj–” he began, but then interrupted himself. “Well, you do you.” tomorrow marks my last show with the company. tonight felt more intense than the others. i made a list of incidental sounds for the piano, so that my mind wouldn’t freeze in those moments of auxiliary percussion on the inside or outside body of the instrument. however, having the list there froze me up even worse. i didn’t know what to choose. what i’d chosen. tomorrow, no. but that fighting energy sustained the piece on my end. i’ll miss playing it. could have gone out to bars but instead picked up some unsweetened iced tea for f, came home and took a shower. pride begins. thinking of eight years ago when i worked the bathroom at Ty’s. The “bathroom bouncer” I called myself.

this kid reminds me of myself at his age. he’ll do this,...

this kid reminds me of myself at his age. he’ll do this, btw.

june 23, 12:25am | 4m | cache

a feeling of wishing i could clear my cache. delete my history. wipe the slate. almost cried during mishima quartet, went to joyce to see the la dance project’s other program, the one i don’t play in. used to listen to that quartet in high school; bought the cd. i think i wore it out, if you can do that to a cd. but i really think i did. another piece i loved but it had me so uncomfortable i thought i might die. that feeling continues now. one of dread and foreboding. guilty. part of me feels insane. heart pounding, stomach in knots. and then, seriously, it occurred to me on the subway, maybe i just had too much coffee.

i can still hear this one dog barking from somewhere here in the west 70s. f and i can’t, for the life of us, figure out where it comes from. we live above a doggie daycare, so i know the sound of dogs in the basement. this sounds different. and what do the neighbors directly next to this dog think? what do they do? how do they live? 

on the subway two gentlemen, maybe a couple, stared at me without discretion. they even talked to each other about me, smiling, pointing. i nervously took that evening’s program out my jeans and thumbed through it. 

i remember, as a kid, expressing myself through laughing at inopportune times. concerts in which i performed and attended. assemblies. detention. ‘silence’ on the bus when we kids had acted too rowdy. these all presented themselves as opportunities to laugh. tonight, during that emotionally challenging/difficult piece on the program, my eyes and attention went like a heat-seeking missile across the hall to a group of people, beside themselves with giggles. judging and seething, i cursed them, and cursed myself for finding them, as if on a mission to find the least engaged people in the hall (a habit). i decided that they had to make the piece about themselves, lest they actually let the piece in. deflection. but then, how did i deflect the piece? how did i keep from letting it in? 

a woman in front of me looked back conspicuously after i yelled bravo, as if equal parts puzzled and incensed that i enjoyed it. 

can still hear that dog barking. 

6/22, 12:29am | 7m | from Washington Square

I wish I had the boldness to see a Steinway grand piano on a platform in the middle of a park, and then ask the people tending to the stage if I could… you know,  just…play it. I barely approach instruments in the halls where I actually play with that kind of cavalier spirit. But today it happened again and again. “Can I play the piano?” And I had to say no to each person. To one guy, I asked, “So you play?” He squirmed and said, “Well… I dabble.” He repeated that a few times. “I just dabble.” But again, how bold then! This dabbler figured the stage and the Steinway would do just fine. Maybe I’d have found it more shocking if he’d said, “Yes, I’m a pianist.” Then my brain might have really short-circuited. I don’t, by the way, mean to outline here some kind of hierarchy of pianists who have rights to various instruments or settings (even though…maybe?). It just strikes me, after years of playing public piano performances outdoors, particularly in New York, that many people see a piano as an invitation. And speaking for myself, when I see pianos out in the world, or even in people’s homes, I literally never think to sit and play. Never. The idea actually sends me into a panic. Someone also asked if we took requests. 

Maybe I’ve just spent too much time living by the rarified codes classical music. On the other end, though, I wonder if a generation raised within the absolutely-homogenized-openness of social media, might view something in front of them, say a piano on a stage, as something appropriately for them. And why not? “Who are you?” they might ask me.

_____ 

when addressing friends of the straight male variety, i say “dude” and “girl” in equal measure.

_____

composers, i think, may always retain their enthusiasm for a performer who might act as an ambassador for their music. of any living composer, people probably recognize the name ‘philip glass’ the most. today i properly met him (we’d shaken hands a few times before) and he seemed genuinely delighted that i play his music. “do you compose, too?” he asked, and i told him that primarily i perform. maybe i imagined it, but this seemed to gratify him even more. “you should look at my etudes,” he advised with what seemed like, actual, genuine interest and enthusiasm. “i’ll play one this afternoon,” i said. and of course now i wish i’d said a hundred other things. for instance that i have both books of his etudes, that i once drove to new york city from vermont to see a performance of his. that his music actually changed and shaped me as a young person. it led me to la monte young, to john cage. i wish i’d mentioned all of our mutual contacts. anything to validate myself i suppose. 

but how interesting and pure and wonderful, i thought, that the most famous composer alive still feels so utterly proud of his newer work, and lights up at the prospect of a performer experiencing and presenting it.

_____

ever wonder what a Cliff bar looks like before it makes it to the package? i’ve always imagined a goopy glob. well, it probably looks like the cliff bar i discovered in my pocket tonight after performing under the sun, going to Brooklyn, coming back home, etc.. it went all those places with me, and i re-discovered it on 72nd street, melted and warm in its package.

_____

a swimmer keeps track of their laps—races themselves. musicians too.

_____

Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto strikes me as blue. The First, red. The Second, green. The Third, yellow. The Fourth, blue. And the Fifth, red again, however E-flat strikes me as a rather cream-colored key. So red and cream.

6/22 12:29am | 7m | from Washington Square

I wish I had the boldness to see a Steinway grand piano on a platform in the middle of a park, and then ask the people tending to the stage if I could… you know,  just…play it. I barely approach instruments in the halls where I actually play with that kind of cavalier spirit. But today it happened over and over. “Can I play the piano?” And I had to say no over and over again. To one person, I asked, “So you play piano?” The guy squirmed and said, “Well… I dabble.” He repeated that a few times. “I just dabble.” But again, how bold then! This dabbler figured the stage and the Steinway would do just fine for him to play a little. Maybe I’d have found it more shocking if he’d said, “Yes, I’m a pianist.” Then my brain might have really short-circuited. I don’t, by the way, mean to outline here some kind of hierarchy of pianists who have rights to various instruments or settings (even though…..). It just strikes me, after two years of playing piano performances outdoors, that many people see a piano as an invitation. And speaking for myself, when I see pianos out in the world or in people’s homes, I literally never think to sit and play. Never. The idea sends me into a panic. 

Someone also asked if we took requests. 

Maybe I’ve just spent too much time living by the rarified codes classical music. On the other end, though, I wonder if a generation raised within the absolutely-homogenized-openness of social media, might view something in front of them, say a piano on a stage, as something appropriately for them. And why not? “Who are you?” they might ask me. 

when addressing friends of the straight male variety, i say “dude” and “girl” in equal measure.

composers, i think, may always retain their enthusiasm for a performer who might act as an ambassador for their music. of any living composer, people probably recognize the name ‘philip glass’ the most. today i properly met him and he seemed genuinely delighted that i play his music. “do you compose too?” he asked, and i told him that primarily i perform. maybe i imagined it, but this seemed to gratify him even more. “you should look at my etudes,” he advised with really what seemed like genuine interest. “i’ll play one this afternoon,” i said. and of course now i wish i’d said a hundred other things. for instance that i have both books of his etudes, that i once drove to new york city from vermont to see a performance of his. that his music actually changed and shaped me as a young person. it led me to la monte young, to john cage. i wish i’d mentioned all of our mutual contacts. anything to validate myself i suppose. 

but how interesting and pure and wonderful, i thought, that the most famous composer alive still feels so utterly proud of his newer work, and lights up at the prospect of a performer experiencing and presenting it.

ever wonder what a Cliff bar looks like before it makes it to the package? it probably like the cliff bar I discovered in my pocket after performing this entire afternoon, then going to Brooklyn, then coming back home. It went all those places with me, and i discovered it melted and warm.

a swimmer keeps track of their laps—races themselves. musicians too.

Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto strikes me as blue. The First, red. The Second, green. The Third, yellow. The Fourth, blue. And the Fifth, red again, however E-flat strikes me as a rather cream-colored key.

june 20 11:58pm | 5 m | extra head

today my practice really kicked the shit out of me, what can i say. not enough sleep? well, maybe so, but also not a great excuse. sold out tonight at the joyce. the world of dance seems foreign to my classical music sensibilities—that a theatre could sell out for pretty much 10 days in a row. and even tonight, a tuesday! i remain humbled by this collaboration, in that i feel, when performing cage’s music alongside cunningham’s choreography, close to a world of creativity for which i can only hope to do a fraction of justice. and at the same time, it just feels good, presenting this music. thought its difficulties abound, the freedoms it also allows feels altogether luxurious and freeing, particularly after a day where having to put notes and rhythms in the exact right spot in the exact right time presented such psychological agony. at one point i took a little walk in the sun. but really, during one of many breaks, i thought about the principle of most concert music—the idea that a composer commits something to paper, and then a performer recreates it later; well, it just sort of strikes me as absurd, from time to time. like, why? why recreate this blueprint for someone else to play, and then why should someone else? the piano itself often strikes me as absurd. this unruly, strange, utterly unnatural object. we treat it like some kind of organic, holy thing. we poetically speak of tone and touch. but really, we have this massive machine on our hands, an accumulation of centuries of technology, and that i should drive that car sometimes feels a bit unbelievable. i remember once playing bach with friends and, after my piece, asking my fellow pianists if they, too, often feel a sense of ‘disbelief’ when playing bach’s music. they looked at me as if i’d grown an extra head.  

only three more shows with the company. tonight (7:30), fri (8)...

only three more shows with the company. tonight (7:30), fri (8) and sat (2). #cunningham #cage #ladanceproject

june 19 | 11: 49pm, 5m | later

these first days with the crumb feel like—i don’t know—you know those metaphors where people talk about getting knocked down, but then you stand back up? i feel like that. nothing seems to work. tonight’s sticker-approach, as in, putting stickers on the black notes but not explicitly labeling every note that crumb asks one to pluck, might actually work for me, but probably not with the stickers i used, or the way i affixed them. i think i want little dots. so tomorrow, i’ll take every thing off and try again. meanwhile, i did try playing the pizzicato-only middle movement, and it went like a nightmare. i find that crumb, like cage but totally different, resembles a spiritual practice in that one has to approach it prepared for it to humble them. one has to expect the reward to come later, but that each drop of practice, each day with it, loosens that granitic barrier. one has to believe this. i live in fear, however, because i don’t really have a “later” to speak of—rather, i have about two weeks. no time to get lost in my typical black holes of obsession and compulsion. no, i need to work. 

june 19, 2017 | 12:50am, 10m | facial

Is there anything more painful or disheartening than the first day of learning a Crumb score? I finally started putting my fingers on the strings for Five Pieces after a couple days of writing in notes and rhythms. I wanted to cry. No, really. I should’ve had a beer or some wine. Instead I retreated to the living room and flipped on Rosemary’s Baby. Then wrote in more notes and rhythms. As I think of it… did I even get to the end? I guess I stopped somehwere in the fifth movement, where my notes trailed off. And then I drew a bath which I never took. At least not until midnight, so, colder than desired. I have to embrace the miracle of how every day it’ll make a little more sense, and then ‘it’ happens. But that leap of faith in the beginning, gosh it hurts. And feels ridiculous. Some practical matters, I need to mark the strings, not just the hammers, all of which I already marked on my own piano. But the strings themselves, and mark them in a way so that I can see them. Crumb says “tiny” pieces of tape, but how do I see the letter-names themselves, or write them on a sliver of tape…? I don’t know; I have to figure this out literally tomorrow, and get whatever materials are necessary. Right now, it feels a million times more awkward and strange than Little Suite for Christmas, with scarsely a forgiving sound. Crumb’s later music seems to have sprinkles of tonal rewards. Not this sucker. Meanwhile, I understand full-well that people have comfortably performed this piece for around forty years, so why should I moan or treat it like some impossbile thing? Anyway, it makes my other musical challenges of the moment seem quaint. And how will the Cage in August feel coming out of this, I wonder? I’ll have no time for that, too. Today, folding laundry, spotted a bottle of lube on the floor of our closet and thought the words, “ghost of sexual activity past.” Today, Folsom East happened in Chelsea. Last year, I went with John and drank more then than I have since, or had for a long time before then. I remember that afterward, with Kevin coming over to say hello, I tried to run it off in the park—my drunkenness—and of course took a bath. During today’s matinee two men snored simultaneously in seats close to me. I took it as an invitation to frighten them awake with loud sounds—notes and otherwise. A woman finally whispered to one of them: “Sir!” After each performance, people encircle the piano with questions (typically, how did Cage notate the music, and do i coordinate the music with the choreography). 3 out of 4 times this happened, but I’ve noticed that it only happens if one person asks a question first—then others drift over. During my bath I put on a kind of facemask and thought of how Chris, when he spoke to me, used to take every opportunity when we saw each other to mention my complexion. “You’re breaking out.” And how another friend once, on the subway, asked me, “Have you ever had a facial?”